Japanese calligraphy

Slowly catching up on things I wanted to share...

Here's a draft of my project for the traditional calligraphy class I've been taking, once a week on Tuesday afternoons after the usual schoolday.  Its challenging because I have the handwriting of a gorilla, but I'm gradually figuring out how to use the traditional brushes with the dexterity of a gorilla who has advanced to second grade.

The final project is writing out a traditional poem within 20 characters.  The poem I chose was honestly pretty random - they're nonsensical to me in the classic Chinese anyway, and I forget the deadline until right before class, so I chose one of the first things to pop up on a quick google search.

Each page is read from the right, top down, and then the pages are arranged similarly.  It will eventually all be one vertical piece of paper.  Orange marks are corrections on the forms, although big orange swirlies are a sign that that character is passable.

The original 7th century Chinese written out in a more clear order...
千山鳥飛絶
萬径人蹤滅
孤舟蓑笠翁
独釣寒江雪

In contemporary Japanese...
見渡す限りの山々には、鳥の飛ぶ姿も見えず、
雪の積もったどの小道にも、人の足跡は見られない。
蓑笠をつけた老人が、小舟を川に浮かべて、
雪の降る寒江で、独り釣り糸を垂れている。

I'll make a better translation of this at some point, but the idea is...
Looking out on an endless expanse of mountains, so vast that the forms of birds and traveler's footprints on the snowy road disappear, an old man with his catch of lionfish pushes his tiny boat into a river as his lonely fishing line dangles on the snowy path.

Its too bad that this particular stage of the draft I'm sharing is the only time I've ever received a correction on the character 翁, meaning venerable old man.  Despite my lack of talent at most other characters--do you have any idea how hard it is to write the two strokes of 人 properly?!--somehow 翁 is my specialty.  As such, I proposed I new poem for my project that would better utilize my talents.

翁翁翁翁翁
翁翁翁翁翁
翁翁翁翁翁
翁翁翁翁翁

Somehow the instructor was unimpressed with my composition.